


Mesara of the Reaches

by cathouse_mary



Category: Inbound Flight, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy - Timothy Zahn, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017), The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: OC backstory, because I am 100 percent that writer, tied-in to another author's fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:35:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28657320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathouse_mary/pseuds/cathouse_mary
Summary: Every change starts with something you're not prepared for.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenieWithABeenie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenieWithABeenie/gifts).



> Queenie wrote an incredible fic called Inbound Flight ([Part 1: The Journey(](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27550816), [Part 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28081398), [Part 3: For Home and Song](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28081398) \- FFS read!), and made an open call for OCs which she included in the work. My contribution was [a member of the Navigators' Guild, Mesara Novrili - included here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28493898/chapters/69820137) which tickles me silly!
> 
> But everyone has to have a backstory - and I'm giving her one here with special thanks to Queenie who was the spark of her existence.

14 BBY: Lysatra: Northern Reach: Lowtown

Every change starts with something you're not prepared for. Mesara's change starts with one word and that word is 'pregnant.' The Lowtown clinic is operated by the Empire under the auspices of a Lysatran non-profit, and normally she wouldn't be here. Anything to do with the inner systems, Empire or Separatists requires caution. 

"I have implants." Her gaze fixes on the white-paneled wall, color posters about health and wellness and the Empire's gifts to WIld Space. The implant was supposed to zap the ovum at the point it passed into her fallopian tube. Her mind feels as if it's in freefall. "I just had a new pair put in three months ago."

She'd known something was wrong and put it down to taking a stunner bolt from a stormtrooper on Duad. Infamous for not hitting what they shot at, but the joke was that troopers weren't shooting at her. Mesara was an oops sitting at the bar. It took a week before she was able to go to the head and back without having to crawl at some point. Kayce went on a bender while she was down, but what could you expect? Mesara put his stuff in a spaceport locker and sent him the keycode.

"Let me scan it for you." Medic Karsati has her lie back with her shipsuit open as he presses the scanner to her abdomen. "I see them, but they're inert. Have you been exposed to strong electrical fields?"

Numb, the impact having slammed everything out of her, Mesara takes a minute and takes some deep breaths. "Stunner bolt. It was an accident. I wasn't the target."

"And the father?"

"Good riddance." Mesara has never been about flowers and poetry, but a farewell and good luck would have gone a long way.

"I can give you the termination shot, but you're six weeks and you'd have to ride it out here unless you have someone to look after you." The medic is an Imp, too, dressed all in white with a sympathetic smile that doesn't reach his ice-gray eyes. "I just need to take a little blood test first."

Instead, she sits up as he moves to roll up her sleeve. Something's prickling at the back of her neck. "I need to think about this." 

Karsati looks surprised. "It's hard to raise a child alone, especially out in the wilds. The Empire has adoption programs available, but you'd have to be in the actual Outer Rim to sign up."

"I make a good living." Brewing and smuggling bacta isn't as idiotically hazardous as smuggling spice or arms, and bounty hunting is steady work. "I have my own ship, steady runs."

"Still, a young mother, alone. It's a hard way to go." He seems disappointed, the blood testing pack still in hand. "You could look for a retired officer, even a non-com who wouldn't care where the child came from if you'd take his name."

"That's something to think about." She seals up her shipsuit, thinking that it's also something to run like hell from. "I'll take it under advisement."

"We also offer prenatal care, if you're determined to go through with it." Karsati gathers some flimsi brochures, pressing them into her hand. "The Empire cares very much for its most vulnerable citizens, Mesara. Please, comm the clinic and let me know which path you choose."

"I will." Mesara buttons her collar and pulls on her cloak. "Thank you, Medic, for the information."

Winter in Lysatra's Northern Reach isn't horrible, but the wind is damp and chill today as it blows in from the ocean. The low grey duracrete buildings huddle against the wind, warm lights shining from within. People are staying in ahead of a northern storm and more than anything Mesara wants to get a bowl of red stew and yellowbread to take back to the _ Lucky Cat _ . 

Pregnant. By the First Song - why now? 

"What kind of life can I give you, little one?" Mesara murmurs, pulling the hood of her cloak more snugly around her. "I don't know anything about how to take care of you."

The small life, now that she knows it's there, has no answers for her. At this stage it is barely differentiated from the First Song. Mesara stops by the bounty hunters' guildhall, but leaves without taking a puck. Her currency position's good from the last two bacta batches and a run to Lehon. A quick scope of the independent freight operators hiring board shows some Vanto and Grand Trunk jobs, but to the Outer and Mid-Rim. Too risky.

Maybe that's what's driving her now. Risk. The Empire is coming to Wild Space worlds like Lothal, Lysatra, and others where they bring their technology, their laws, and their scrutiny. Her parents, especially her mother, were emphatic - staying away is staying safe. The risks of the Wild will kill you, but it's generally quick - the Empire can do much, much worse.

It's time to go. Her bones know it. But where?

Instead of a bowl of red stew and yellowbread, Mesara gets meat pies. It's an old comfort food that her parents would buy as a treat. They bought her these just before they left, saying that the run would be too dangerous.

The  _ Lucky Cat _ is empty and quiet with the ramps up. Mesara eats in the cockpit, washing the pies down with hot lamis cider. The numbness is wearing off and the first thing Mesara feels is a desperate need for her mother and an overwhelming grief that she's not here. The black swallowed her parents without so much as a last known trajectory. Now she's sitting alone and knocked up, with a small bean-sized thing inside her that she has to make the right decision for. 

The insurance her parents made sure was paid each month gave her enough to finish school, get her certifications, and buy the  _ Cat _ . Secondary school chemistry gave her the ability to brew a clean batch of bacta and the  _ Cat _ gave her the ability to move it. Mesara knows she won't starve. It's been survival ever since. That's fine - there's a lot more poor bastards who have it far worse. Even with a kid in tow, she ought to be alright - at least when it comes to cargo hauling. 

_I want my mom._ Her breath catches and her tongue moves as if to wail; only the reflexes of a lifetime make Mesara cram a hand over her mouth as her vision shimmers with tears.

The meltdown is epic and if she's being honest it's also long overdue. Never one to cry prettily, it's all tears and snot, raw vocalization and arms around herself as she rocks in her seat. All the crying does is give her a dazzle-headache and leave her empty - no solace, no comfort. She resorts to a swift whiff of narco and falls into bed as it silvers the edge of her vision. 

The next morning is rough and she considers sticking her head back under the covers.

"Staying in bed doesn't fill the hold or your belly. Quit bitching and get going." Besides, there's nobody to make caf unless she gets up and oh how she wants caf.

It occurs to her in the head that she's acting as if the bean inside her is no longer bean but baby. Frankly, that scares the shit out of her. The decisions she has to make, the commitment required make her stomach lurch. Over caf in the galley, she picks up the flimsi brochures that Medic Karsati gave her. Nutrition, exercise, safety, and a pointed brochure about adoption showing a male Imperial officer and his beaming female (and non-military) spouse with a chubby, happy baby. 

"We Can Give Him a Better Life." 

"Choose Adoption!"

Her parents had to have had it more together when they found out she'd be coming, right? They didn't panic or almost barf their caf into the galley sink, right? 

Knocked up or not, panic or not, she still has a day to get through. Putting on her cloak, Mesara visits the bounty hunters' guildhall during a break in the sideways rain to see if her pay's dropped from the last job. It has, but there's also a rude surprise to go along with it - she's been moved to light duty. The clinic forwarded her medical information.

"It's just until you make a decision. If you're keeping it, we'll shoot you everything we can - convey duty, courier, whatever it takes." Cresti the Unsleeping pats her arm with one of his face-tentacles, his voice deep and resonant out of the water. "You're a member in good standing, dues up to date, never a problem. We've got your back."

Going unsaid is that light duty is routinely scorned by other hunters. The purses are not big enough.

"Thanks, Cresti. It's reasonable, I mean I can't go bouncing around after bounties when I'm out-to-there with a kid." Something Mesara hadn't thought about. "It's early days yet."

"Brew up some of that bacta for me. I'll get you some buyers." Cresti's suckers take a firm hold on her hand. "And stay away from the Imps. That medic had a lot of questions about you. I don't like his smell."

"I felt that way, too. That's why I left without getting the bloodwork done." There's something that made her just want to get away from him. His eyes were the worst part - shiny and devoid of emotion, of all feeling.

"Look. I don't want to tell you how to live, Mesara, but we both know you're one of the best navigators out there. You're lucky. That can make people think things." Things like Jedi, though he doesn't say it. "Be careful out there. Maybe find a place to lie low until your spawning time comes."

"I'll think about it, Cresti. I promise you that." And she will. The prickly feeling at the back of her neck hasn't stopped since she woke up.

Her pay tops her up on fuel for the  _ Cat _ , food, and supplies - including knitting yarn. Booties and blankets. What else is she going to need? How soon will she get big? Lunch grabs her attention as she keeps an eye on the weather app. A noodle soup with cutlet and dress tickles her fancy, and she darts into the waterside diner, taking a seat in a booth to order.

And the second that her soup lands in front of her, so does a man in a white tunic and black trousers. His insignia says major, his uniform says ISB, and his eyes are as cold and shiny as a doll's. 

"Mesara Novrili. I'm Major Dakkan Plathe. We have a mutual friend."

"Let me guess, Kayce Lanzer is in custody and wants bail? Tell him to rot." 

That's not it, and in her guts Mesara knows that's not it.

And so does Plathe. "No, my dear. Let's start from the beginning. Assume that I know everything about you." He takes off his cap and laces his gloved fingers on the table in front of him. He would have a pleasant face were it not so still, and he's light-eyed and fair-haired as many Core folk are. "Jerrod Karsati and I go way back. You won't find a more dedicated physician or loyal Imperial." 

"The medic? I told him I wanted to think about my options."

"And we want to give you options, especially when it comes to such important decisions." Plathe is the calmest person Mesara had met in her life, but there is a darkness at the center of that calm. "You refused a blood test, much as your parents did just before they left Tatooine. Can you tell me why?"

"I didn't know about Tatooine. My parents never mentioned anything." Mesara rudely takes a bite of her cutlet. "The caf here's strong, but really good. You might want to try a cup."

Plathe chuckles, his face with an 'oh silly you' look of indulgence. "There are people in the Empire who seek out those with special talents. Most people want to avoid them at all costs."

"I'm a pilot and navigator - you make fifteen to the dozen of me at your academies." Of course, she's heard rumors. Children and newborns snatched away, or whole families missing. "The only thing I want to avoid at all costs is getting shot."

"I'll have that caf and keep you company while we discuss things." He signals the server while Mesara eats her cutlet and then her noodles. "Adoption's on the table, of course. Kayce Lanzer - no we don't have him and I did check - is out of the picture. He's nothing but washed-up freighter trash who tried to climb up from the gutter with an exceptional young woman."

Mesara knows that he's trying to flatter her and instead of responding to the petting, her skin wants to crawl into her boots. Fortunately she has a mouth full of noodles and can only nod.

"But there are any number of men and a few women, if you go that way, who are in the twilight of their careers and thinking of the home and family they had to forgo in their service. Loyal, of course. And I know Jerrod broached the subject." He sips his caf, eyes eerily intent. "Not to rush you, but you are carrying a bastard, and there are limits to suspension of disbelief in our circles. The right spouse can protect you, your talents, and your talented child. Respectability covers much."

"I don't know how something the size of a bean could have a talent, and I've told you before - I'm a pilot and navigator. I've been sitting in a cockpit since I was three." Mom taught her navigation, Dad taught her piloting - she passed her insystem exams at fifteen and her full exams at seventeen - but he knows that. "I got my certifications young, that's true, but only a year early."

There's a change in his face, though he doesn't move a muscle. "Can you really be that ignorant about yourself? It appears so. Perhaps the right path also involves someone experienced at drawing those talents out. We shall see."

There does not seem to be a correct response to that, so Mesara drains her broth.

"There are some ships coming, bearing those who specialize in seeking out the talents of which I speak." Plathe's voice is low, soft. "When I cannot say. They will be less cordial than I. You are a young woman, and you might as well be a leaf in the wind when it comes to the Empire. See Jerrod, have that blood test. I'll be in touch."

And the son of a _knitch_ leaves her with the bill for his caf.

That night, Mesara locks up and powers her shields to the lowest setting before she turns in. Just in case.

~

The next morning, her comm chirps before her caf and Mesara unthinkingly answers it. 

"Mistress Novrili, my name is Medic Deydre Baylis. A colleague of mine expressed concerns about your health and welfare." The voice is smooth, almost no inflection. "If you'd come by the Lowtown clinic location, I'd like to help you with your options."

"I'm busy this morning. You'll have to call back at a later time. Thank you." A look at the incoming code confirms it was from a private comm. These people are persistent. 

That ISB major might have been leaning on her, but Mesara doesn't want to find out if he was telling a tactical truth or not. Perhaps, if she hadn't spent time in the guild, she'd be easier to panic. Panic did nothing but get you dead. For now, she does have a busy morning of refueling and securing the  _ Cat _ against pushy and prying ISB twits. For a non-aligned world, the Empire seems to be trying hard to get Lysatra into the fold.

Maln, the manager of the landing-bay complex, stops by on zir repulsor sled with a look of concern on zir… well, it's not actually a face, but a close emulation of one. Maln is an amorphous blob that manifests extensions in order to accomplish whatever is needed.

"Mesara. You are in mitosis?" The voice is watery and flat, but the colors shifting over Maln's exterior membrane are bright and excited. "Do you reproduce?"

Oh, for shit's sake. "Does everyone know my business? I thought that doctors and spies were experts at keeping their mouths shut!"

"Explain, please?" Maln is unfailingly polite. 

"Sorry, Maln. Humans don't split, we bio-females gestate after an ovum is fertilized by a determinant cell from a bio-male human." Mesara pats Maln's membrane by way of apology, watching the colors warm and deepen. "I'm just upset because suddenly all these Imps are in my business."

"I do not know the people of which you speak. It is because of the colors." Maln manifests a hand and pats her in return. 

"I'm sorry, the what?" Since Maln does not have eyes as humans do, Mesara is not sure which of the dots and squiggles in her jelly-body are sensory organs. "What colors?"

"The colors that come out of you. You have many colors all around you all of the time, I notice this when I met you." Maln's pseudohand describes a wavering halo around Mesara. "Today your colors are disturbed and divided. This is why I thought you were in mitosis. Are you indeed reproducing?"

Well, the tooka's out of the bag now. "Yes. I am. I just found out yesterday."

The excited aurora returns to Maln's membrane. "The colors come out of you most strongly. Your child will also have these colors, I think. Those in whom the colors are strong pass such abilities to their offspring." 

Mesara takes a seat on a cargo cube. "Maln, I can't see these colors. Can you explain them to me?"

There are things never to be spoken of, and these things are written on her bones. The First Song, and her mother, her own training in navigation before she was four, Cresti's words yesterday. The ISB officer's threat.

"The colors are around everyone, but around certain beings they are very strong." Maln mimics Mesara's appearance, only with what appears to be a halo of pseudopods coming out of her. "You use these colors sometimes. I have seen them when you fly and navigate."

"I don't see it, Maln." But some part of her knows it to be the truth. Mom always said that the First Song guided her in otherspace. "It might be part of the First Song."

"Does a fish feel water?" Maln asks. "You do not notice it because you have been within the colors since you existed. You have the way of it about you."

"I'm no enchanter." Her mother feared sorcerers, and her mother's mother fled from them, too. 

"There are more with the colors than the sorcerers." Maln withdraws the pseudopods and pats her once more. "Be at peace, Mesara"

"As much as possible, Maln. Was there anything else you needed?" 

"Ah, yes. Your lease is set to renew next month. I can give you a good rate if you renew and prepay." 

If she pays now, it'll look as if she's staying. "Sure, let's do it. What's the monthly breakdown?"

"Four hundred LCR including sanitation charges, 50 standard gallons of water use per day with rollovers, electrical systems hookup, and other general dockage fees." Maln transfers the document to her datapad. "Cargo transfer equipment usage is still a flat fifty LCR per hour, but with prepay you'll get priority." 

Mesara reads it, then initials and scans her thumbprint to sign and pay. "All set for the year. Thank you, Maln."

"Received. Thank you, Mesara." Maln's datapad is internal, and flashes green for a file received. "Felicitations on your gestation period." 

Until now, Mesara was on the fence about leaving or staying. Now she knows that she's going to leave, but not just when. The Bounty Hunters' Guild has halls in every corner of the galaxy, even into the Unknown Regions. Mesara can find work, and even if it's light duty with even lighter pay, she can brew clean bacta. It's going to be tight, but she keeps most of her pay in hard currencies and the rest on account with the guild. A few more jobs and she'll head further into Wild Space, away from the Empire's attentions. 

_ First Song, guide me. Sing to me of strength and wisdom and let my ears be open.  _

That afternoon, after locking her ship and bay, Mesara ventures out into Lowtown. If… no, not if… when Bean arrives there are things she needs to know and to do. A download gives her a book,  _ What to Expect When You're Expecting: Human Edition _ . Mesara opens it over lunch and almost immediately breaks a sweat. All that in just six weeks? With thirty-four more to go? An hour of frantic highlighting later and Mesara is determined to start a batch of bacta tonight. Babies need very many things and so, apparently, do mothers. 

Throughout her errands, Mesara turns over the possibilities in her head. She has a small room with a refresher and a galley, a space for her office. That's enough for her and a child up to toddling age. When Bean is bigger, she'll need more running room and schooling. If she rigs the second bunk for Bean's crib, that ought to be nice and safe. A repulsorlift bassinet catches her eye, and an attachment for her own bunk to co-sleep with the baby. Stepping up to the merchant's kiosk, Mesara enters her account code and bay address for delivery. 

It feels like an irrevocable step. 

~

Cresti calls her before caf. "Are you out of your sleep cycle?"

"I am now," Mesara croaks into her comm. "What the hell is so important that you're calling me at zero dark thirty?" 

"Drink your foul and blasphemous swill and get to the hall. I have a job for you." 

Cresti discomms and Mesara swears, rolling upright and stumbling blearily to the refresher. His race doesn't sleep, as he reminds everyone with hearing. He considers sleep to be a weakness, and caf an abomination. For Mesara, caf is her lifeblood and she savors the first sip on her tongue as one might true love's kiss. 

Since it's a business call, Mesara forgoes the shipsuit to dress in light armor and weaponry. Her chest protector feels a little tight, and she has to loosen the wraps on her breast supporter. People might look askance at a young and well-armed woman in impervium and cortosis, but this is Lowtown. Certainly with an Amban rifle and a pair of E-851 pistols in full view, people tend to get out of her way. The new helmet is a splurge she made before she knew about Bean, and it's full-face with enhancements.

In the low-lights of the guildhall, there are a few members waiting around on benches and around tables, some are in with collected bounties. Mesara walks up to the dispatcher and greets him. The Czaoul has never spoken to anyone, and hooks an appendage at the guildmaster's station. 

"You," Cresti rumbles in a meditative tone, "Do not look as if you are with egg. Your color is not pale, and you have ingested"

"Humans do not lay or brood eggs, Cresti. Bio-females gestate and bear live young, then lactate to feed them."

The Cthalan's tentacles draw into a tight ball, and his color blanches. "Mammal? You're a mammal? You didn't tell me that!"

"You've known me for four years, what did you think I was, a Galph? Humans are mammals." 

Cresti visibly pulls himself together. "At least you will not need to brood your clutch for four years." 

Mesara was not going to inform him that Bean would technically not be bio-mature until the age of around 20 years. "What's the job, Cresti?"

"Light duty, pick up a master of the Jewel Cutters Guild from Lothal and bring him here." Cresti hands her the puck. "You're being paid for the round trip, bodyguard duty as needed."

"The _Cat_ 's not the kind of accommodation that a guild master would expect. It's a bunk and a galley." Her YT-1300F is an efficient hauler, with a special section for her bounties and bacta as needed. "They might be a little put off."

"The mission information's on the puck. Everything you need to know." The two primary head tentacles unfurl reaching out for her face and gently suckering her skin. "Mammal. You're an actual mammal. Amazing." 

"The boobs are kind of a giveaway." Mesara pockets the puck. "That's where we get the name - from mammary glands used to feed the young."

"Ah, that's right. Humans do not show high levels of sexual dimorphism. You are a subtle species that has to mate quickly and under stress." Cresti's second level of body tentacles unfurl from beneath his poncho and pat her. "Nice mammal. Good mammal. Good hunting."

"Good hunting, Cresti. See you when I get back." 

Mesara waves on her way out, just as Cresti announces to the hall at large that humans are actual mammals, and Mesara is gestating young.

_ Oh, shoot me now. _

To be fair, in Wild Space and the Unknowns, the guild is more nonhuman and non-humanoid than not. For many of the guild members, humans are a rarity. Once back aboard the  _ Cat _ , Mesara activates the puck. The convey is the same species as Maln, and is named Wral - a level four cutting master. Maln's species eats mostly processed protein balls and needs a lot of water. Her bacta tank can hold enough to keep his membrane supple, and she has a spare repulsor sled. All she needs to do is adjust the ambient moisture and the guildmaster ought to be just fine.

" _ Lucky Cat _ to traffic control."

"Control to  _ Lucky Cat _ ."

"Need outbound vector and jump point to Lothal plus return reentry for 75 hours forward. Confirm."

" _ Lucky Cat _ outbound vector 40.74 at -73.98 to jump point -84.07 at 5.11, return reentry same-same point in 75 hours. Good hunting and may the Great Presence guide you."

"Control, a full belly to you.  _ Lucky Cat _ out." Mesara punched the jump coordinates into her navicomp and took the yoke for the ride out of the atmosphere. 

And on the way out, her comm chimes. "Mesara here, I'm on my way out of the atmosphere. It's going to have to wait."

"Mesara, this is Medic Karsati. I wanted to schedule your bloodwork whether or not you've decided to terminate. I-"

"I'm leaving the atmosphere, and I'll be back in three days. It has to wait. Mesara out."

_ For fuck's sake.  _

Mesara breaks out of the exosphere under the nose of a pair of Arquetiens-class. The Empire's moving more hardware, she supposes, though Lysatra's at the ass-end of the galaxy even for rebels and insurgents. The Imperials are a presence, not a government - if anyone could govern Lysatra.

"Freighter YT-1300F  _ Lucky Cat _ , this is Imperial traffic control ship  _ Paladin _ to your starboard, proceed to exit coordinates as given by Ground Control." 

That's new. As in just a few days new. "Imperial traffic control ship Paladin, proceeding as registered. Good hunting."

There is no reply as she takes her point and exhales, letting the First Song fill her.

The First Song sings through her, clear and pure, made when the universe itself was first made. The way is clear, there are no hazards. Five ships are inbound, seven outbound, each filled with the lights of the living. Mesara pulls back on the drive handle, hearing and feeling the singing of her hyperdrive as the stars burst into lines in front of the Lucky Cat. From her earliest memories, the Song is written on her bones, and where it leads her, she will go.

The run to Lothal is good and Mesara is able to handle her schedule with little effort. Granted, she stays in hyperspace for twelve hours before heaving to and spending eight hours sleeping. In fact, even with the full watch of sleep, she arrives at Lothal's orbital passenger station after just 22 hours of flight time - 30 if you count sleeping. The Imperial picket passes her in and out of the system with no comment

Guildmaster Wral is twice Maln's size, but fits comfortably in her portable bacta tank and can roll it around if zi pleases. Zi is grateful for the water, the humidity, and for the presence of protein balls. He thanks her in semiproficient Sy Bisti and makes himself comfortable.

"I apologies, Mesaranovrili. When work I do, speaking I do not make." He shifts a small pouch of stones for her to see. "Inward is my vision, the cuts to make true."

"That's all right, Master Wral. When I'm flying, I'm not great company either. Our first leg is twelve hours, then eight for sleep, then the last leg straight through."

"It is well. Do all humans require restorative inertia?" 

"Yes, we do. I can arrange some entertainment if you like for when I'm sleeping. Holoshows or some tap-slide games on a datapad."

Wral extended a pseudopod and patted her shoulder. Your consideration is appreciated, but I am faceting a unique and significant gem." One blue stone detached from the internal stash and turned in the fluid behind the membrane. "I anticipate at least fifty more hours before I finish the preliminary cuts."

"I'll leave the downlights on for you."

Wral simply hums, puddling into the tank as he concentrates on his gem. 

Indeed, his concentration is so deep that when the fight starts he makes not a murmur. Two pirates in what look like old - but well armed -  _ Spiker _ class corvettes are waiting for them. It's more likely for Master Wral and his treasure when she breaks out of otherspace. This is the drawback of piloting solo - Mesara engages the firing AI and powers her shields. 

~

There's an echo in low-traffic hyperspace when someone drops out ahead of you, and for Commodore Lares Kenas that echo is enough to have a look-see. Certainly the 54th Task Force's journey into the ass-end of the galaxy has already been a fraught one that has them going jump-by-jump instead of right down a respectable hyperlane. They lost the ISD  _ Bloodstone _ four days ago when they smashed into a planetoid that was not supposed to be there. Now they're left with his ISD  _ Vanguard _ and ISD  _ Sunspear.  _

The echo's distance is a guesstimate, but when both destroyers drop back into realspace thirty minutes later, they find that they've walked in on one hell of a fight. A YT1300 freighter is damaged, one pirate already on a docking collar with the second pirate already maneuvering to lock the freighter between them. 

"The YT's projectiles just went live, sir!" The senior lieutenant on sensors calls out.

Before he can say anything Lares watches as the freighter fires a starboard round of ion torpedoes point-blank into the ship attempting to lock on. The captain has balls, that's for sure. Ion torpedoes can arc back and disable the ship firing them if they're too close. The pirate vessel starts to drift away, disabled, while the other remains locked to the YT's docking collar.

"Time to tractor beam distance?" 

"Five minutes, sir." His XO started on the beams and can eyeball it with amazing accuracy. 

"Hail all three in Basic and then in Sy Bisti."

"Sir, the portside ship is disengaging their docking collar!" 

"Open fire." Green light streaks toward the pirate ship as it begins to maneuver away. 

"Sir, the YT is hailing us - a passenger. He says that the captain is fighting pirates and has locked him in the cockpit." Comms is an old pro, but his expression of disbelief is as wide-eyed as a cadet. "The captain - referred to as 'she' is a member of the Bounty Hunters' Guild and he is a member of the Jewel Cutters' Guild - her passenger."

"Sir! The YT's firing a-"

Lares curses, this time there is an arc - a minor one but it's going to take the YT's captain some work to get her port side electricals online again.

"The comm's dead, sir. That arc took out the YT's communications panel." 

"Three minutes to tractor distance. It looks as if the YT's trying to reboot."

"Tractor the YT while her systems are rebooting and bring her to the impound hangar. Take both the pirates in after her. Full complement of troopers to the bay." Lares turns, striding past his command chair and to the turbolift. "Medical to the bay in case the captain or passenger on the YT needs attention."

In the landing bay, the two pirate ships are being tractored in. The YT - called  _ Lucky Cat _ \- looks a little less lucky than its name. The freighter is heavily customised in ways that would make any Imperial captain look askance, but out here in the wilds there may actually be a legitimate reason for two extra quad cannons, ion torpedo launch tubes, and a jammer that could give his sensor operators a fit. There's significant damage to the portside deflector shield projector, some of the durasteel is pitted and blasted, and the cooling array for the dorsal quad cannon is still sparking. 

"We've just signaled them to come out, sir. Comm's still down." Commander Hesper informs him. 

The starboard ramp lowers and…

What looks like a bacta tank coasts out on a repulsorlift with a jelly arm manipulating the directionals. In front of the tank is a short figure in full armor, wearing a pulse rifle, two pistols, a small grenade launcher, and a bandolier missing some grenades. The armored figure - the bounty hunter - is also carrying a box of Blue Diamond brand bacta patches and limping slightly. 

"Captain of the  _ Lucky Cat _ \- hands up! We will approach and disarm you. Your cooperation is required otherwise you will be stunned and restrained!" A squad of four troopers and a sergeant approach as the hunter raises her hands while another four and their commander board the ship.

"I took an impact on the left side and can't raise my arm." The voice is young, and to a Corulagi it's jarring to hear a sweetly feminine voice from the brain bucket. "I also have two knives in my boots."

The troopers advance, one taking hold of her left arm. From there it goes quickly. Boots, greaves, cuisse, gauntlets, pauldrons and finally a segmented cuirass all to the deck with her weaponry. The helmet reveals a young face, her brown hair in braids, and brown eyes - the skin tone could be a spacer's tan or might be the same all over. She holds her dignity clad only in some kind of unisuit of a matte, dense material. One of the troopers investigates the box of patches while another one is trying to figure out the alien in the bacta tank.

"Mammalian females are supposed to be very fierce," the colorful blob says. "Mesaranovrili, the Gem Cutters' Guild will reward you, as will I."

Lares can't help it. He's a Corulagi, of a high house, and a Navy man. No matter how rough a diamond might be on presentation, it's still a diamond - and a rough one she is. Still, she might have a trove of useful things between her ears. Then there's a resounding crash from inside the ship.

"Hey! What in the hell do you think you're doing?" The little hunter turns back and barks up the entrance ramp before she's restrained. "You thumb-fingered clods-"

One of the troopers comes down the ramp with a literal armful of weaponry, inclining his expressionless white helmet to her in what might be meant as rebuke. "Commodore, she has enough weapons aboard to supply a platoon." 

"Knows how to use them, too, Sir. We've got a fair number of deadies in there - human, Twi'lek, Pantoran, and some others we're not familiar with." The commander comes down the ramp and gives the girl another look. "Anything else we need to know about? Traps?"

"No traps. May I have my bacta patches back?" 

The politeness comes through gritted teeth and Lares realizes that there's an echo, similar to another ship in a hyperlane. Lares was not taken for a Jedi as his ability was deemed too weak to be trained. He's never managed to twitch Vader's whiskers, or pull the eye of an Inquisitor much less a Jedi. Weak it might be, but it is eminently useful. Mistress Novrili is, like Lares, an empath - low level to be sure but the resonance of like-meets-like is there.

Lares was resentful at being sent this far out, but now he finds new possibilities intriguing indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

He was raised as a Corulagi gentleman, educated as an officer, and has served the Republic and now the Empire. He is forty, and was entering the academy when this hunter was exiting her mother. Her youth is disturbing, but she is a resource that he could make much of, Lares thinks. 

He offers the young lady a seat on a cargo cube and hands back the bacta patches. "Our medic should be here soon. How were you injured?"

"The first ship was able to get in close while I was fighting them both. I handed off fire control to the AI and got ready to be boarded." Sitting takes most of the strain from her brow. "If any of the ones I killed have bounties, I want the claim on them."

Of course. "I don't see an issue with that. Or for those on the ships you disabled, unless the Empire has a prior claim."

"Then the Empire can pay me for the ones on the first ship, the only reason I could hit the second with the ion torps is because your turbolasers bobbled them." The girl opens the box of patches. "As for how I got dinged. I stabbed one and he went down the tube to the ventral quad gun, but took me with him before he bled out. I drilled his friend in the faceplate when he tried to aim at me - then he fell in on top of me."

"No hits?" Brans asks. "Not good shots, then."

"Circular central corridor and I made sure not to give them sightlines." The young lady undoes the sealing strips at the side and shoulders of her bodysuit and peels it to her waist, as nonchalant as any stormtrooper. "I think I got six of them, the others might have hauled ass back to their ship when you dropped in."

Lares is grateful that most eyes are occupied elsewhere, though one stormtrooper almost drops an armful of weapons as he comes down the ramp. Behind him, the blob is raving happily about ferocious mammals and the visible light spectrum. In front of him is a woman in a molded chest protector. He needs to make conversation because the chest being protected is quite nice indeed. There's another quality about her that Lares can't quite pin - empath, yes, but something else is poking him in the head. 

"Sir? This is Commander Hesper. Could… um… could you board the ship for a moment?" Hesper calls from the top of the ramp. "I don't know what to make of this."

"That has to be a first." The girl's face has gone suddenly blank and Lares grimly prepares himself for spice smuggling charges. He signals two troopers to keep watch and goes up the ramp. 

"Commander, what is it that-"

He stops in his tracks. The walkway grids are lifted and there's a trooper in the hole holding up a pack of… baby buttwipes. Then to prove they are as advertised, he snaps open the top and pulls one out. Looking into the space turns up a repulsorlift bassinet, diapers, buttwipes, a portable crib/baby brig, and other items along with a flimsi copy of ' _ What to Expect When You're Expecting: Human Edition _ .'

Oh no. Oh.  _ Bother _ . Lares pinches the bridge of his nose and rubs his temples. The something that was brain-worming him was something he's seen four times previously with his wife - pregnancy. 

"I'll handle this." He takes the book. It's early days for her and she's in fighting shape, which is possibly why he didn't see it right out, but she has that glow that Gisele always had when carrying his children. He takes the book. "Turn it upside down, but leave the baby-wrangling cargo undisturbed. Full report on her specs." 

A quick look around shows the ship in good order, all the local certifications posted inside the boarding ramp with her name on them - Mesara Iasmindotir Novrili. Shipshape, but Imperial regulations require an astromech if there's no co-pilot. There's no partner, much less a husband, in evidence and the girl is flying around with aliens and shooting pirates. He is truly in the wilds now. 

Lares looks down at the book and then, tucking it under his arm, stalks down the ramp. He sees the pirates tossed out on the decks and cuffed - a few of them bearing marks of the little captain's attentions. A few of the dead ones aboard the Lucky Cat were in multiple pieces thanks to those grenades.

"Captain! You neglected to tell us about your other passenger!" He calls cheerfully, walking up and showing her the book. "When were you going to mention that you're pregnant?"

"Never. You didn't ask and it's none of your damned business." 

The entire bay falls silent. One does not tell a flag-rank Imperial officer what is and is not their damned business because everything inside and outside of their decks is their damned business. Lares makes allowances for her being a Wild Space wild child and taps his rank plate. 

"Rephrase, Captain Novrili." His medic is finally here and stops to watch the show, as does the ISB officer ostensibly here to take custody of the pirates for interrogation. 

"All right. It's none of your damned business, Commodore."

"That is hardly better." Lares is well aware that Mesara is a bounty hunter, and thus hard to intimidate. Her perceptions of Imperial authority are nonexistent as is her respect for it. "Our medic will see to your injuries and make sure that your child is unharmed. Afterward, Colonel Wilfri and I will have some questions."

The face that Mesara makes upon seeing Wilfri does not quite cover the eyeroll and the 'not you people again' face. "As long as it's about the pirates, fine. As for the bean riding around in me, my working armor's this cortosis unisuit and segmented turadium over impervium - they could have hit me with anything short of a turbolaser and I would have been good to go."

Wilfri snorted. "Turadium? You're fighting Jedi here in the middle of nowhere, girl?"

Ah, yes. The ISB. Recruiting for the rebels since Empire Day One. 

"There are more than Jedi who use laser blades," Mesara said in a tone flat enough to press a uniform. "And since I haven't had any sudden amputations I can say that the investment was worth it." 

Such a huge amount of 'fuck you' jammed into such a small body.

Medic Covvarubi coughs mildly and sticks himself into the fray. "Ideally, I'd like a full scan and prenatal baseline as well as seeing to Captain Novrili's injuries. I've brought a stretcher."

_ Here we go. _

Three. Two. One.

Launch.

"Absolutely not." The little captain actually puts her foot down on it. "I'll walk." 

"You were limping." Lares feels her digging in like a tree rooting itself. 

"I feel better with the patches on." As if that means anything. "And I can't leave my passenger, zi is my responsibility." 

"Part one - that is utter nonsense and you know it. Part two - the… guildmaster will be accommodated in guest quarters until the medic determines you can be released." Aliens or not, he's not going to start pissing in the guilds' caf - at least not right away. "Part three - whatever you are considering doing, my dear, I am bigger, older, meaner, far more experienced, and I did it first. Now, you can get on that stretcher under your own power, or under mine. Pick your battles wisely."

It takes Mesara an insulting interval before she gets on the stretcher. She seems to ponder how many troopers there are in the proximity of her weapons, and the likelihood of making it aboard her ship. The only wise choice is the stretcher, and for a young boneheaded-stubborn bounty hunter, Lares supposes the process is new and untrodden. 

"I will join you shortly - when the pirates are settled and we can begin preliminary interrogations." Lares places the book on the stretcher and curtly signals Wilfri to follow him to the other end of the impound hangar. "We'll negotiate your bounties later, Captain Novrili."

~

The ceilings are all the same, and between the movement, the pain, and the drone of a massive starship weigh down her eyelids. Against her will, Mesara closes her eyes and drifts until the stretcher stops with a bump. Mesara opens her eyes, acutely aware of exhaustion and the need to sleep after twelve hours on station.

The medic, another light-haired and light-eyed Core worlder, raises the back of the stretcher when she sits up. "I'd like to do the mouth swab for illegal substances, then the scan, then a blood panel. Erm. Have you started prenatal protocols yet?"

"No, I just found out four days ago. Do you have many pregnant women aboard?" Mesara blinks as he hands her a thin cloth pullover.

"Counting you? One. Women in the service are on a particular implant that suppresses ovulation and their cycles." He cocks his head and considers. "I think that you're one of maybe 100 women on this ship. Disrobe, I'll give you some privacy for that, put on the pullover and I'll get you ported."

The pullover comes to mid-thigh on her and has a flap in the hollow of the shoulder. That must be what he means by 'ported.' He does the swab and pronounces her clear, then has two orderlies lift her onto the scanner bed. The head-to-toe goes fine, but he takes a close look at her left shoulder, ribs, and hip.

"Big guy who fell on you?"

"Yeah, but I'd landed lengthwise on the gunner's seat."

"Big bad bruises, but no breaks. I'll give you an infusion, patches, and an anti-inflammatory instead of a dunk." He adjusts the scanner controls and the machine moves to her navel and then begins scanning down. "Everything looks good. Normal attachment. Development about seven weeks."

A careful application of bacta and he rips a port from the packaging and opens the gown's infusion flap. "This is going to tap into your axillary artery. I'll use it for infusion and a blood draw. Don't worry, it's automated and numbs you out before it-"

"FUCK!" The thing barely numbs the hollow of her shoulder before it punches through skin and muscle to tap the vein. Mesara's head swims and she falls back on the scanner bed.

"Sorry. Most everyone's used to it. Let's get that draw." The medic inserts tubes into the ports and begins filling the diagnostic datapad.

"Are you going to leave me any?" That's an awful lot of blood. 

He takes out a small test unit and applies it to one of the tubes. Frowns. Throws it away. Opens another one. Mesara's need for sleep is overriding her sense of self-preservation. Her eyes drift closed. The last thing she hears is the medic cursing and saying that they can't all be defective.

Sleep. Deep and black.

~

The pirates are sorted - all but three of them admit to being wanted by the Empire and the Bounty Hunters Guild. The master cutter alien is contentedly faceting a blue gem the size of a human eyeball, though he asks about Mesaranovrili. Lares makes a trip to the main infirmary and finds her sleeping under a heap of blankets- a series of drips infusing via an axillary port. She looks, in her sleep at least, young, innocent, and soft.

As opposed to prickly, stiffnecked, and ram-headed when awake.

"She was exhausted. Wiped out before I started the drips, sir." Covvarubi murmurs. "She's getting rehydration, anti-inflammatory meds, and a big whack of prenatal vitamins." 

"All well, I take it?"

Lares can feel her better now that she sleeps, the savor of her warm and bright. Worries dog her in her sleep, and though she is still in body, her mind is restless. 

"Normal and progressing as expected. I don't know what the galaxy is coming to." 

"Let her sleep herself out and contact me when she wakes." Lares frowns at the piles of opened and discarded blood tests. "Is there a problem?"

"Well, Commodore, those are all M-Factor test kits and every last blasted one is defective." Covvarubi picks one up, opening it. "All the small glass tubes that hold the blood are cracked and the testing chamber is contaminated."

"We'll report that when we get to the ass-end of nowhere, Medic. I hope they have the holonet up and operating by then." He hopes for many things by then, but in the far-outlands you can piss in one cup, hope in another and see which is filled first. "Advise me of any changes."

"And the pirates, sir?"

"Standard interrogation methods. Wilfri is running their biometrics to look for warrants and bounties."

Lares walks the ship and the bridge before the end of watch and finds a report on the  _ Lucky Cat _ in his message stack. Supervising change of watch, Lares retires to his ready room instead of his quarters. There's nobody warming his bed for him, so stretching out on a cot with a Corulag shan-fruit brandy is enough to relax with at the end of his watch. He opens the report and digs in starting with the standard YT1300F Corellian freighter.

As he reads, his eyebrows ascend. Certainly there is no proof she is a smuggler, and with her bounty hunting there may even be a reason for the ship's configuration, but it's making his whiskers twitch like a tooka sensing skitters. The hull plating is the same as on his ISD, frame and landing gear suitably reinforced. The jammers would give his sensormen fits, and her comm array is specced to cover a vast distance - understandable out here. The  _ Cat _ 's primary hyperdrive will do a .5 if overclocked, and her backup is a solid class five - that said, her cooling array shows that the .5 is the standard operating speed. 

Weaponry is the stock ventral and dorsal quad cannons, plus two additional port and starboard where observation decks would be otherwise. Port and starboard ion torpedoes, brand unknown but highly effective - capable of auto reload and firing three rounds of four. Six doonium-tipped missiles in the forward battery between the cargo arms. The gunnery computer makes him whistle, an older but pricey Republic-era Sienar AI targeting computer is hooked to all guns and launchers, leaving the captain to fly. Shipboard computers, comms, wiring, and all electricals are to current code - even for the Empire. Mesara has upgraded her nav computer to a highly sensitive one that he'd have to think about putting his most experienced navigator on. Every credit of her bounties must have gone into making sure the  _ Lucky Cat _ gets all nine lives coming to her.

It's screaming "SMUGGLER!" at him, but her membership in the Bounty Hunters' Guild gives a strong argument for not.

Lares sets the datapad on his chest and closes his eyes. He's still in the habit of sleeping wherever and whenever he can - be it the ready room, a shuttle seat, and even his mother-in-laws' garden parties. 

For which Gisele richly tears strips off him, bless her.

His ability might not have been enough for the Jedi to consider training him, but Lares saw nothing wrong with training himself. Reading and researching, he discovered his talents were more keyed in to emotions and sensations that he could sense and sometimes manipulate. He is an empath in what had to be the most antithetical line of work an empath could take - and so, interestingly, is the little captain. Bounty hunting certainly is not where one ought to find an empath, but neither is the bridge of an ISD.

Lares closes his eyes, lets out his breath and is shortly standing in what he thinks of as 'the bubble.' The  _ Vanguard  _ is quiet after the change of watch, filled with little whirls of light and emotion, but there's one that he wishes to observe and he pushes the edge of the bubble outwards. Mesara sleeps at the edge of his range, her emotions dense and layered, dreams passing in streams of feelings, worries for her child-to-be interlaced with all of them. Lares reaches out with all due care, gently touching her light and then is shocked to watch it contract, harden, and dim. Mesara, knowingly or not, renders herself almost invisible to Seeing. 

_ That's new. _

In his forty years, he's never knowingly met another with any Force ability aside from Vader and Inquisitors. Lares slips into his own rest watching and waiting for that light to unfurl again.

When he wakes, the third watch is just coming on, and as he applies beard-stopper, Medic Covvarubi informs him that the little captain is awake and obstreperous about getting back to her ship. He'll delay her with some kind of nutrition, but what she wants is caf and lots of it. 

Lares pinches the bridge of his nose. She's going to be _work_ , isn't she? 

"Fine, standard interview protocol for non-hostiles. I'll be there with Wilfri. After that we'll see if further interrogation under medical protocol is required."

Wilfri is certainly enough to play bad cop to Lares' good cop and Brens a neutral third between them if it gets heated. If that even works with a hardened baby bounty hunter. She is sitting up, the breakfast tray cleaned and a steaming cup of caf in hand. The lady is, herself, metaphorically steamed. Mesara has had some sleep, loaded up her caf system and is ready to go. 

"You must understand that due to the circumstances, we need to interview you. And your ship has some damage that needs to be assessed as well." Lares is reasonable and is certain that he can get her - with effort - to see reason. "And there's the matter of your bounties."

That perks her right up.

"Name?" Wifri starts.

"Mesara Novrili. Pilot and navigator first class of the Independent Freight Operators Guild, Bounty Hunter Journeyer-Class of the Bounty Hunters Guild, Master Brewer of the Independent Bacta Brewers Guild."

An interesting combination of vocations. 

"Most accomplished for one so young. Age?"

"Twenty-two."

"Place and date of birth?"

"Mos Eisley, Tatooine. Nerv 9th, 4976 - local calendar. I'm not sure what that is in the Imperial or Lysatran calendar." They will have to try and convert that, and give her a revised birth record if there is even a record to revise.

"When and why did your family emigrate to Lysatra?"

"My parents left Tatooine because of the Hutts and the Black Sun eight years ago, our family ship was an older Gozanti called the _Silver Sylph_." Mesara would have been fourteen. "I don't know the particulars."

"Where is your family, Mesara? Is there someone on Lysatra we ought to communicate with?"

"Guildhall Master Cresti, Master Hunter of Northern Reach Guildhall."

"No family."

"They went into the black six years ago."

"Into the black?" Lares raises an eyebrow. "I'm not familiar with your colloquialism."

"When someone goes into the black, it means they don't return from the Unknown Regions. They took a job but left me as I was still in schooling." 

"I see. My condolences." Lares murmurs. There's a soft echo of pain from her. The edges have begun to blur from their sharpness, but the pain is still there and everything around it tender. "Were they hunters, as well?"

"No, they were freight operators."

"Like you." They were smugglers running from at least one criminal syndicate, he'd bet the _Vanguard_ on it.

"Like me."

"Tell us why you dropped into realspace when and where you did." Wilfri continues.

"I am on transport duty via the Bounty Hunters Guild by arrangement with the Jeweler's Guild to bring Master Cutter Wral from Lothal to Lysatra." There's confidence there - they know she's not smuggling. "I exited hyperspace to get some sleep before the next eight-hour jump to Lysatra."

_Wait. Eight hours?_

"Our best navigation estimate is three days," Brens sounds disbelieving and well he might. "How in all the names are you getting there from here in eight hours?"

"This is the closest thing to a hyperlane that you're going to find out here. It's only going to take three days if you go jump by jump."

Lares looks at his captain. "With respect, Mesara, what do you know that the navicomp doesn't?"

A snort and an eyeroll accompanies her answer. "Plenty, apparently. Look, we're right on the edge of an area called the 'Stormlands,' and 'Pandemonium.' There are roving planets, gravstorms, and even black holes looking for a spot of tea - the further in you go, the more weird comes at you."

"A roving planet." Like the one that popped up in front of _Bloodstone_ , snuffing out 38,000 lives. "Tell us about the 'pandemonium.'

"There were wars here, thousands and thousands of years back with weapons that we can only imagine." Mesara explained. "The Pandemonium doesn't normally affect us here, but it can and nobody knows how or why."

"I see." Brens is rubbing his moustache. "How far into this 'Pandemonium' have you been yourself?"

"There are guildhalls on Tekk and Masimo." 

"If I bring up a nav chart, can you show me where those even are and the boundaries of the Pandemonium?" Brens gets a hard stop on that one from both himself and Wilfri. Classified.

"I can show you my most current charts, but you need to be aware that the Pandemonium can change - advance, retreat, or even switch up what it's thrown at you before." Mesara is matter-of-fact about it. "I'd need access to my navigation computer, my targeting AI and internal surveillance can also provide you with details from the scrum with the pirates."

And then it's a four-way scrum between a commodore, a medic, an ISB man, and the hardheaded young lady - who is not putting her ship in their hands.

Is she suspected of criminal activity?

No.

Is her vessel not to code or lacking certifications?

No.

Are her documents out of order?

No. 

"Then what the hell is the actual problem here?" Lares can feel the simmering of frustration, bless her anarchic little head. 

"Mesara, you have no conception of how the Imperial process works." Wilfri intones. The exact wrong tack to take with her.

"If I could see a process at work, I might. I thought the guilds were glacial." 

"Surely the government of Lysatra is not just a rocket on rails." Brens is trying persuasion and reason. It fails spectacularly.

"We don't have one."

Ah, that's what a screeching halt sounds like. Lares picks this one up while his XO and the others simply stare. "Mesara, every world has some form of centralized government. They handle infrastructure, education, taxation, police, the military."

"We have the guilds." As if that explains everything.

Lares resists the impulse to pinch the bridge of his nose. "The guilds. All right, so who makes sure that the system is defended within the borders?"

"The Mercenaries' Guild."

"And what about medical care? Public health?" Covvarubi asks.

"Medical Guild, though your folks came and opened a lot more walk-in clinics."

"Who keeps the public peace? Tries and sentences criminals? Practices law?" Lares has the sinking feeling that he's walking into a line of fire here. "How do they pay for infrastructure and services?"

"Constables' Guild, Magistrates' Guild, and Lawspeakers' Guild." Mesara gives them a frankly pitying look. "The Council of Guildmasters collects the dues paid to the individual guilds and then budgets accordingly."

"So Lysatra has no local, planetary, or system government aside from the guilds." Lares takes a deep breath. "No centralized authority at all?"

"Well, the big southern companies would like to get a bigger piece of Inner Systems trade, and they wouldn't mind knocking the guilds down a peg." Messara shrugs. "It's probably them that made overtures to the Empire. I might feel the same if I had to deal with a dozen different guilds just to get my ship up."

The room is quiet until Lares sighs. "Well, if that's the case, then we've probably been sent to smooth the ride for whatever benighted fool Coruscant appoints as governor."

Mesara's lips twitch and he can feel a bubbly streak of amusement. "And what makes you think that's not you?"

Damn the little doomsayer anyway. 

~

They put the _Cat_ mostly back together after the search, but left the weaponry in a big cargo cube in the middle of the main cargo bay. At least the baby supplies are neatly stowed in the compartments under the walkway. Mesara is accompanied by himself, Captain Bures, and four troopers - which in her stated opinion is just fucking ridiculous. She leads them into the cockpit and while she could call it a bridge, Lares can touch both walls if he stands in the middle with his arms out.

At the moment, the _Cat_ is hooked up to the _Vanguard_ 's power, so there's no wind-up to get the lights on and the power grid up. Downloading the vids from interior and exterior surveillance takes very little time at all, and she hands them over.

"Now if I could collect Master Wral, I'll be on my way." 

Lares gets ready for the work. 

"That will not be possible until we've reviewed your surveillance and compared it with your black box." Now for the big one that the wild flyer is not going to like. "Also, you have no co-pilot, so according to Imperial regulations for small freighters, you need an astromech droid or piloting AI. Unless you're dropping out of hyperspace every time you need to use the head."

The alternative is walking away from a live console, and that is dangerous enough to give _him_ fits. 

And, as predicted, she doesn't like it. 

And says so succinctly.

"Nerfshit."

With an eyeroll.

Lares taps his rank plate again. "Rephrase, Captain Novrili."

"Nerfshit, Commodore." 

"Hardly better, though you at least partially succeeded in not rolling your eyes this time." He leaned back at his ease in the co-pilot chair, turning it on its gimbal to face her. "Reminder time. I am a flag-rank officer. I am in charge of you and I can put anyone on this vessel in charge of you down to a mouse droid. I say go, and you go. I say stay, and you stay. It's as simple as that."

"Not in your chain of command and also not in Imperial space." Great. A cargo-box lawspeaker.

"Extraterritoriality." He does like the punchy ones. "Where an ISD is, then there is the Empire and, as you helpfully pointed out, I may be the governor-presumptive." This time her mouth drops open and she's speechless. Time to savor the moment. "Now, you'll be our guest until everything is sorted out, and then you can fly back to the guilds and complain."

Still speechless.

Lares wagers this one's been charting her own course for a long while, and is accustomed to circumventing 'no.' However, those are trifling obstacles. He and the _Vanguard_ are representatives of the mightiest 'no' ever formed to combat criminality and disorder. He watches Mesara process it and take a dislike to the taste.

"You may communicate with your guild, no visuals, to let them know your status and that you have your contracted passenger. And take some clothing, at least two days worth, for while you're in guest quarters."

~

He's true to his word, this asshole. Then again, with a massive capital ship under her butt, Mesara could certainly muster some tall-hog attitude herself. Wral is well, glad to see her and a pack of protein balls, and she gets to shower and dress while Wral speaks with Captain Smug and Commodore Insufferable. Ze goes back to zir faceting while popping a protein ball into a vacuole. It really comes home to her how massive this ship actually is when they have to take a horizontal tube and then a vertical one twenty-four decks up to reach the comms station - twenty minutes after leaving the hangar. When they were tractored inboard, Mesara was largely concerned with getting a very heavy dead body off of her and didn't appreciate the actual size of the _Vanguard_.

Comms is located in an alcove off what Mesara estimates to be the primary bridge in the tower. It takes some boosting and bouncing and though they won't let her near the equipment, the comoff asks her advice. Mesara's not cuffed, nor is she in the brig, but there are guards outside the quarters they've been billeted and she has a two-trooper guard on her heels.

"All right. Send a signal to coordinates 23.2577 at 651.57, intensity 99 percent. It's a commpoint. Let me hear if it gives a pingback." They sent these people out here like it was a quick trip to the store. 

Mesara waits for the ping and then gives the guild's public frequency. "Hunter Mesara Novrili for Guildmaster Cresti, pingback urgent."

It takes a while, but eventually the answer comes - faint and wavering, but it's an answer. 

"Mesara Novrili, you are overdue." Good old Cresti.

"Pirate attack 45.222 at 64.434. No casualties, the master cutter is well. However, there is a complication."

Cresti's sigh spans the lightyears to her ears. "Of course there is."

"The pirates' attack was stopped by the appearance of the _Vanguard_ , a class-one capital ship of the Inner Systems Empire."

The reactions around Mesara range from baleful glares to gargled outrage. 

"I assume they're being sticklers about the bounties?" Cresti's always looked out for guild, first and foremost. "And I assume, given the frequency, that you have been taken aboard?"

"I have been taken aboard pending their interrogation of the survivors." Mesara sighs. "The ships may have had some eye-slide-by device. I didn't see the second one until they'd locked on to my collar."

"After the Master Cutter, then."

"With the sack of big sparklies ze's carrying, I wouldn't be surprised - but it means that there's a leak in the Jeweler's Guild, sir."

There had to be. They were waiting for her and attacked the second she dropped out of lightspeed.

"Understood. I will be in contact with them and arrange an investigation via the Mercs' Guild. When you return, there will be an inquest."

"Understood, sir."

"And the Bounty Hunters Guild will negotiate any bounties due with the third party, as per your contract. It ought to be enough to get you an astromech droid." 

_Oh, for fuck's sake._ And Commodore Insufferable is smirking about it. "Understood, sir."

"Furthermore, hunter, I expect that you will treat the commanding officer of the vessel as you would your guildmaster." Lares actually grins and Captain Bures is laughing into his hat. "Cooperate fully with the investigation. We will speak upon your return, Cresti out."

As soon as the channel closes, Kanas laughs like it's the best joke he's heard in his life, with his hands on knees and leaning on the bulkhead, tears actually coming to his eyes. 

It's going to be a long two days.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Empire is in her business and Mesara would do anything to get the hell out of there. Unfortunately, Lares Kanas has other ideas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Folks, please go back and reread chapter two! For some reason half of it got lopped out and it's now about twice as long.

Mesara is bored out of her skull. Their billet is comfortable, obviously meant for lower-ranked guests and has its own caf brewer. Master Wral is good company, and gives her a vivid green stone - which ze says matches her colors. Wral knows very little of other races, and has only recently left zir genetic group, but zir questions are kindly meant. Ze is keen to know how soon Mesara will 'debud' - leading to a whole explanation of human reproduction - which gives Wral the whim-whams.

"You are very brave. It sounds painful and arduous."

That worries her, because of all the women who have borne a child, that's a common denominator. The language in her book is vague at best. Keeping her balance during her air and fire forms workout is slightly more difficult than previously, and her boobs are very tender. There are going to be freak-out moments, and this is just one of them. As she contemplates this, the ship goes silent - only the sound of air for life support reaching her ears and every hair she has tries to stand on end. A chirp from the door comm is all the warning she gets before one of the troopers enters.

"The ship's on stealth mode, everyone's on ration bars and nutritional drinks. The commodore will contact you."

"He's waiting for the mothership to show up, isn't he?"

"Sorry, I'm just a trooper. The brass don't clear their decisions with me."

Mesara shrugs, "Well, thanks anyway."

She learned from an early age that if there's nothing you can do about a given situation, that's a good time to get some sleep. It's fitful, the air around her feeling charged, and when the ship powers up, the frame itself vibrates as the engines strain. Mesara knows every sound the  _ Lucky Cat _ makes in every situation, it shakes her to hear and feel the differences between the _ Cat  _ and the destroyer. Pacing doesn't help, her body knows that if there's a fight that she needs to be in right now.

Fights in the _Cat_ are fast and dirty, over fast. They're not battles. The battle goes on for hours, until at some point everything stops, winds down, and Commodore Insufferable's voice is piped shipwide.

"Good work, everyone."

After rations, Mesara goes back to sleep for a few hours when the lights dim, indicating night phase. 

It's the last bit of peace she gets.

Commodore Insufferable has organized his own inquest, apparently in the aftermath of questioning the pirates. Mesara is on her own against a bunch of captains who dissect her every move. 

Why this location to exit hyperspace? 

Needed sleep.

Why hand over the gunnery to the firing AI?

Had to put my armor on.

Didn't you see the second ship?

The exterior vid shows they have some sort of coating on the ship - not a true cloak, but close. 

They walk her through every possible decision she could have made, pick apart the ones she did make. They argue about her modifications, make her defend them until she's sweating.

"Sorry, I don't have a class-one capital ship under my ass with an infinite supply line."

Then they open the interior view. It's actually interesting, and a captain comments on her keen attention.

"I've never seen myself fight before." They look a little impressed, some of them actually smiling when she hammers a Morghhid in the chest with a microgrenade. "It's not like military fighting, I suppose."

"How are guild bounty hunters trained?" One of the captains asks. 

"We pass entry tests and then take a two-year apprenticeship under a master hunter. If we live, then we're onto our journeying time." Mesara doesn't even remember most of what she's seeing herself do. "I'm in my second year of journey, but have years more to go before I can claim the title of a master hunter."

"Are there many hunters of military backgrounds?" Another ISB man asks.

"No, they tend to go to the mercs' guild. Hunters are too loosey-goosey for them and the mercs are a bunch of pillow princesses anyway."

Some of them get caf all over their pretty uniforms. 

Then they show her excerpts from the interrogations. 

Mesara's a realist, knowing that some of the pucks she takes end up like this, or executed, she's had bounties beg her to just kill them. In truth, she tried to stay ethical, but sometimes… sometimes she can't. Not and survive.

She pushes that away hard. Life isn't fair, and sometimes staying alive pushes you into a place you'd rather not be and to do things you lie awake with long after you've done them. Besides, these are admitted pirates and slavers who were going to kill her and the master cutter to take those stones. Maybe their lives pushed them to this place the same as hers did, and she can acknowledge that, but she's alive and they're either going to hard labor or disintegration. Something bigger and meaner than she is is seeing to it the way the pirates would have shoved her out the Cat's airlock without a second thought - if she was lucky.

"Thoughts, little hunter?" Commodore Insufferable asks.

"Pirates here seldom try to take bounty hunters as prizes. They kill us, if we're lucky. If we're not, then it's the spice mines, slavery, or worse." The face of the pirate captain is frozen in a silent scream as electric shocks tear through him. "Fortune's favor turns on us all at some point. Until then, you just keep fighting. That's life."

Her guards escort her back to the billet and Mesara lies awake watching Wral facet his prize until the lights dim. The First Song has no answers for her tonight.

~

Most of the men in the room have a child Mesara's age or close to it. Lares' eldest son is graduating and his second eldest is entering Royal Imperial. His daughter - child number three - took a spot at Carida Technical for deep space engineering three years ahead of her age group. His youngest, also a girl, wants to be Wynssa Starflare when she grows up. Imagining Mesara's life against the lives of his own children… 

"I have a girl her age," Captain Ofremi murmurs. "It would fucking kill me to have a child grow up like that."

Bures nods. "The Seps destabilized the whole galaxy. That's what we're fighting for - a soft life for future generations. Good opportunities and social order make good citizens." 

Lares thinks of Natalia, his ten-year-old. What kind of life was Mesara's child going to have? He wants to speak with Gisele - his wife will have something practical to say about it, surely.

"This is going to be a heavy lift, gentlemen." Lares sighs. "We're going into a situation not as advertised. The only thing I can say about it is that there don't seem to be insurgents out this far."

Bures snorts, "Even they have standards. We're walking into anarchy - no central government, just a bunch of guilds."

"Just a bunch of small fish in their small pond wanting to be bigger fish in a bigger pond." Ofremi pinches the bridge of his nose, no doubt thinking of TaggeCo and all their tin-pot imitators. "Let the backstabbing begin."

"Ours is not to reason why, gentlemen." There's plenty of backstabbing to go around at any level in the Navy. "In the meantime, Captain Novrili claims to get us to our destination in eight hours - using her methods. Thoughts?"

Bures jumps in with both feet. "If she can pull it off, and I see no reason for her to mislead us, we'd have the element of surprise. We need her charts since ours were less than accurate."

"Probably not updated in a hundred years or so, but I'd not swallow her tales of wandering planets and the like." Ofremi flicked the fingers of his right hand in the Tangetine gesture for foolishness. "Space doesn't work the way she's describing it, even if it is the Unknowns."

"We gave her a rough ride. Let it sink in that it could have been much rougher." Bures nods. "She's made of some tougher stuff than some of our men."

Major Wilfri shakes his head. "We just put her through a mock court martial and while we made her sweat, she's still got that durasteel spine and a doonium skull. I don't see that as a reason not to use her navigation expertise - albeit closely supervised."

"Send someone with her, let her make the run and then come back." Ofremi suggests. "That way we'll know it's safe. It's taken us long enough to get this far. Another day won't make a difference."

Mesara is summoned before the start of mainwatch and given a cup of caf. Lares explains what they want to do and waits.

"All right, but what about hyperspace chaining?" She sips her caf and her face softens as if she's received a true love's kiss. "That could work, too."

Three captains, one major, and a commodore just blink at her. 

"Hyperspace what?" Lares falls on the sword. "I've never heard of the term." 

Mesara looks up at the ceiling and then drains her caf as if it were a Corulagi brandy before meeting the firing squad. "All right. Let me see if I can explain this."

They understand the theory, but when they call in the navigators and helmsmen, the commanders blanch and lieutenants almost faint. Mesara openly pinches the bridge of her nose. 

"Look, transponders are also rangefinders in a limited capacity. When ship one is close enough to ship two, they ping each other's transponders." She looks around. "Everyone got a grip on that?"

Everyone has a grip on that.

"It's not like slaving two ships together. Both ships enter hyperspace in a staggered formation, close enough to remain visible in the tube. That's nothing new, right?"

Everyone agrees that is nothing new. They'd seen the  _ Bloodstone _ just shatter into bits in hyperspace as a mass shadow came out of nowhere.

"So, your transponders ought to keep pinging back and forth. The navigation computer monitors the signal in hyperspace. When the signal from ship one drops, then you come out of hyperspace still in formation."

No. Nope. Can't do it.

"I do it all the time!" The little hunter throws up her hands. "This ship makes the _ Cat  _ look like a kid swinging a plastiplate on a string. Come on!"

The navigators and helmsmen argue about velocity, volume, mass, acceleration. The hunter - surprisingly - argues back in the same terms. "Look, I learned helm and nav starting in a sling on my mother's chest. I know it can be done because I've done it fifty or sixty times."

The guards escort her back to her billet when she calls the _Vanguard_ the _ISD_ _Pillow Prince_ and the _Sunspear_ the _ISD_ _Pearl Clutcher_.

"It's entirely too early to add Naboo whisky to the caff, isn't it?" Bures asks the air. 

"I like the spicy ones, actually." Lares finishes his caf. "I'll need two troopers for guards, one officer for comms." 

Jaws drop.

"You can't be serious." Wilfri gets his jaw working. "You're a flag-rank officer."

"We need to know if she's blowing smoke, and direct observation of her navigation is the best way to ascertain the truth." Lares cocks an eyebrow. "Unless you think two troopers, a flag officer, and a comms officer can't handle a disarmed hunter?"

"I'd be more comfortable with two death troopers and at least one ISD field agent. She fights like Vader made her." Wilfri grunts. "Who could expect a girl to fight like that?"

Lares watches as one of the naval troopers tries mightily to keep her face stony. "I'm not interrogating her chromosomes, but her navigation - and also a chance to recon."

~

Commodore Insufferable summons her the third morning to deliver her marching orders. 

"Guild rate?" is Mesara's reply.

It gets her a group blink and an "I beg your pardon?" from Commodore Insufferable.

One of the captains gives her section and subsection on extraterritoriality, to which Mesara stipulates, but once she clears that hangar it's back to free space. The commodore says that would amount to piracy with abduction, and she might want to rethink that. Mesara asks what bringing armed men on her ship and telling her where to go amounts to.

"That, my dear, is me being the boss of you." The commodore replies. "You're going back there in any case, though I will pay your convey rate on the way back to the Vanguard."

"And deadheading pay."

"You extortionate little tooka, I will do no such thing." 

Mesara looks up at him and thinks that he's just too tall. For what is the question and she tells it to go away. "No deal."

"One word." Smug oozes from every pore.

"That is?" 

"Guildmaster."

Fuck. And fuck him. And fuck Cresti, too. Fuck.

"Fine." 

She bites out the word and turns, only for a hand to land on her shoulder and turn her back to a finger wagging in her face.

"I have forbearance, as you wouldn't know the Empire from your left foot." Kanas taps his rank plate again, slowly with a smile that has an edge of teeth. "Rephrase, Captain Novrili, subject of the Empire."

Once she gets back and delivers Wral to his guildhall, she'll be shut of these men for good. 

"Yes. Sir."

Twenty minutes later, she's back in the  _ Cat _ and the feeling of being home is so intense that it's like diving into cool water on a scorching summer day. Master Wral's tank is secure and even if she has to stow all of her weaponry, it's with a glad heart. A trooper comes aboard with her armor in a box, and she thanks him. The  _ Cat _ is home, a buffer between herself and a galaxy that seems to lean in too hard at times.

As she puts up her armor in the fast rack, the trooper is studying her. "Problem, trooper?"

"No problem. I had just wondered if I can talk to you about your beliefs." The voice is processed, to a certain extent. "I wanted to know if you'd heard of the Lord Darth Vader."

"No. I'm sure you can find a temple for him on the Street of the Divine, though." Mesara shrugged. "Lots of gods and beliefs from all over there."

"Vader is Death made flesh. We pray to him for might in battle. You fight like one of those sworn to his blade."

"Uh. Never heard of that." 

True believers honestly scare the shit out of her. She had nightmares about those B'omarr monks out west of the Dune Sea from the one time her parents had been called to Jabba's own palace. 

The sounds of the party hitting the boarding ramp cause the trooper to turn and leave. Weird, but resolved for now. Stowing the last of her armor, Mesara sticks an arm into the galley and punches her caf brewer to life on her way to the cockpit. All right. Home at last, with a note that the Cat passed a hull integrity test pinned to the headrest of the pilot's seat. She starts the preflight check as the scent of brewing caf and grumbly voices reach her. 

"Blast door test. Mind your fingers and toes." Mesara cues the test, the doors slamming shut one by one then reopening. Her board is green - aside from the dorsal turret - and she checks to find the black box and cockpit recorder back in place.

She can hear the Imperials walking the ship, muttering about the lack of amenities aside from the practice dummy in the main hold and a stack of holodrama chips. The shelf of actual books are copies of manuals needed to operate the ship. Her bunk and the 'first officer's' bunk are in an alcove between the galley and the head. The crew bunks are in what she generally uses for a smaller hold, and a place for her carbonite equipment. The Cat is far from a luxury liner. 

Commodore Kanas the Insufferable, another officer, and a trooper in black enter the cockpit and Mesara can feel herself bristle as Kanas takes the co-pilot seat, and the other officer takes the comms seat behind Mesara's own. The black-clad trooper takes weaponry and turns his head in her direction. Normally, Mesara runs all three positions through her own panel, though she does shift comm ops to the new officer. Kanas coughs and when she looks over at him, he looks pointedly at the co-pilot's dark station. 

That was not in the deal.

She takes a deep breath and then reconsiders. The faster Mesara makes this run, the faster they're gone. 

"I'm doing this with the understanding that unless I specifically say, 'Your ship' this is not your ship." The co-pilot's station comes online. "Standard controls for the YT-class or any Corellian freighter. Have you ever piloted one?"

"I started at the helm of a  _ Gozanti _ -class, the boards are the same as I remember." Kanas looks it over. "Please take your weapons station live, Captain."

"Hell no." Mesara replies flatly. "I don't know if that fancy fellow's qualified and it's my ass with the Insurance Guild if he's not."

The comm officer behind her - a lieutenant, she thinks - gargles down what sounds like pure outrage. "You didn't ask to see my qualifications!"

"That's because you're not going to shoot off anything other than your mouth." Mesara rispotes. "Missiles and torpedoes are a different story; unless you have some comms tricks I'm not familiar with."

"We can handle the guild. Op him in, Captain." Kanas added, "That was an order. I realize that you're not accustomed to them, so I am explaining."

_ Breathe. Breathe. Get out of here and melt into the black for a bit until he forgets your name. _

"Comms, hail the flight control and get us the good word." 

There's a hesitation, then comms hails fight control and asks for the departure lane out of the massive hangar bay. Flight control confirms and asks that she keep the Cat's weapons systems offline until they are 1200 klicks off the  _ Vanguard _ 's bow.

"Affirmative, flight control. Vector out is BA303C15." There's some back and forth as these pearl-clutchers don't do their interstellar coordinates in octocode. "Which is what I've been saying.  _ Lucky Cat _ confirms vector and out. Buckle up." 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mesara finds herself inconvenienced.

Lysatra System: Inbound and Sunbelt City

Lares has flown on smaller ships, and Mesara warns him that she's not talkative when she's on station. He takes her at her word, and watches as she takes them into hyperspace. Navigators tend to have armor-clad attention spans and this one is no different. Her eyes are open, but she might as well be on the other side of the galaxy. He remains at co-pilot, but Lieutenant Bolan does get up to bring back caf.

The path is hardly a straight one. They skip in, reorient, resume, and repeat - in that time Lares sees stunning vistas not available in hyperlane travel. Four hours in, they come off of a jump into a system of massive gas worlds and belts of asteroids, Mesara tucks them into a crater and shuts down for a head break.

Bolan comms back to  _ Vanguard _ , giving the course they took and giving Lares' order for them to follow. 

"Hold position at the final coordinates until the next transmission." Lares orders. "The course is not as straight as a hyperlane, but compared to our methods, it's shaving off huge blocks of time."

Mesara returns, caf and a ration bar in hand. Some of his own navigators find it hard to disengage after their shifts even if they rely heavily on the navigation computers. It would appear that Mesara's no different in that respect. She drinks her caf and then throws a series of stretches. 

"Told you I'm not talkative." 

"My navigators call it being hyperbrained. Understood, Captain. Continue when you're ready."

The last four hours go smoothly - he absolutely can't fault her handling of her ship. However, they're relegated to a traffic pen as they're overdue. It's a short wait, but instead of a straight transmission Mesara is ordered by the  _ Arquetiens _ -class cruiser  _ Paladin _ to the planet's capitol, with her landing site given as the Imperial garrison's. 

"Negative. I have guild business to complete." Mesara has not learned that the Empire is not taking no for an answer. "And since when is that a garrison? It was Ladero Shipping and Cargo a week ago?"

"Times change,  _ Lucky Cat. _ Land as directed."

"I'll inform my guild and the guild of my passenger.  _ Cat  _ out." 

"You weren't scanned. Sloppy." Lares murmurs. "Comply, but let me be at the top of the ramp."

Mesara looks at him, eyebrow cocked, but nods before she opens her comm. The Jewelers' Guild, the Independent Freight Operators' Guild, and the Bounty Hunter's Guild will all have representatives at the gates before she lands.

Entering atmosphere is smooth, and the garrison is in view - along with the turbolasers tracking the  _ Lucky Cat's _ progress. 

"Whose pancakes did you piss on before you left, Mesara?" 

She rolls her eyes and tells him the story of the ISB man in the cafe and the pushy medics. Lares turns that over. The only way that the ISB officer would know about Mesara's talent was if he himself was sensitive, there's evidence for the medic being sensitive himself. Mesara's 'shell' might not let him read her, but he'd know that the talent was there. The ISB were first to last bastards that even bastards wouldn't trifle with. 

They'd rip her apart like a hunting hound on a leaper. 

And Lares decides that's not going to happen. It's sudden, but it comes to him like a punch to the head. Mesara is going to keep her child and her life if Lares has anything to say about it. The landing bay already has a welcoming party, and he leaves the cockpit to go to the top of the boarding ramp as the ship touches down. 

He touches the ramp controls, letting it down with a whine of hydraulics. 

At the bottom of the ramp is an ISB colonel who goes from being supremely confident to scared shitless is the space of one breath as he calls the company to attention. Why anyone would put an ISB idiot in charge of actual military is beyond him. Lares walks down the ramp with a face of stone, a pair stormtroopers and a death trooper behind him - the colonel and his escort giving way before him.

"Name?" Lares asks, never raising his voice. It's plain enough to see that the climate and surroundings are pulling in every slacker in the Empire looking for a pre-retirement billet. 

"Colonel Islar Morez at your service, Commodore Kanas." 

Lares steps off the ramp as if the Emperor is on his right and Vader on his left. "Colonel Morez. I gather that my arrival is unexpected?"

"T-to say the least, sir. And in such an… unconventional conveyance such as the ship of a suspected smuggler." The colonel tries for firmer footing. "She's rather notorious, you see."

"Indeed? The Vanguard and the Sunspear came upon her fighting off pirates with a VIP of the Jewelers Guild aboard." The man breaks a sweat. "Were you unaware of her contract with the guilds?"

"It… was not brought to my attention, sir."

"I see." 

As a new ensign, those two words were enough to strike terror into even senior officers. Lares is glad to see that hasn't changed.

"And who is in command of the two  _ Arquetiens _ in orbit?"

"Captain Savilan of the  _ Paladin _ and Captain Morescu of the  _ Intercession _ , sir."

"The  _ Vanguard  _ and  _ Sunspear  _ will be here in roughly four hours, I will see them both aboard the  _ Vanguard  _ no more than an hour after they make orbit."

"Yes, sir. I will convey that immediately." 

"As to the charge of smuggling, who instigated the complaint?" 

"I-I'm not sure, sir. It's… we take these things seriously." Morez looks as if he's about to suffer a gastro-intestinal event. "A small inconvenience to the citizen, surely, but-"

"I see." Lares looks over the company. "And there were supposed to be some guildmasters here, were there not?"

No reply. 

"Colonel?" Lares is going to have this lot of loafers booted to the hardest, nastiest, highest-casualty rate assignment that he can come up with. "The guildmasters? Find them. Bring them here. Dismissed."

Once the deadwood leaves he goes back up the ramp to find Mesara looking nettled.

"Who the hell-"

"Things change fast when the Empire is involved, my dear. Play along and I'll have you back in your berth before nightfall." He looks her over. "Get your armor on. They're looking for a soft mark of a pregnant girl. Scare the piss out of them."

On the one hand, he gave her an order. On the other hand, it's what she would have done herself. At least she's fast and armed to the teeth by the time Morez comes back with a small train of aliens. One is a three-meter tall tentacled alien with a similarly attired blue-skinned Pantoran, another a blob of color-shifting gel on a repulsorlift, the next a tall male Togurta, and finally a gender-shifting Hutt transitioning from one phase to another. 

Oh, this post is going to be an adventure. 

Mesara goes down the ramp first and both blobs burst into wild flares of color as the master cutter's tank follows her. The Pantoran is obviously the senior guildmaster, with what must be a master hunter attending him. The Hutt proves to be the head of the Independent Freight Operators Guild - something that raises a parade of red flags to Lares. Finally, the Togruta is from the Bacta Brewers Guild, and everyone has something to say.

Lares inserts himself. "Guildmasters, the primary issue here is piracy on what ought to be safe transit lanes and the espionage that set them on members of your guilds." He looks at the blob who is turning a thunderous purple-blue. "The pirates we are holding and interrogated were very clear that the information came from within the guilds involved."

The tentacled one lays a suckered face-tentacle on Mesara with familiarity. "You are unharmed? And your young?"

"I took a fall, but the Commodore's medics put me right." 

Her nod in his direction is courteous and her neck is so stiff that it all but creaks. Lares swallows his smile. "Captain Novrili killed eight of them and disabled both ships with her ion torpedoes, taking some damage herself."

The blob in the tank suddenly flashes a number of colors and then a sequence of what look like rope-lights. The guildmaster blob flashes a series of colors and lights in reply, then forms a face to speak.

"The Jewelers' Guild will pay for damages to the vessel, in tribute to the Captain's mammalian ferocity."

The Pantoran nods saying, "The Bounty Hunters Guild will negotiate her bounties with the Imperial representative and handle the Insurance Guild since it was a guild contract.

Mesara offers the tank and repulsorlift as a loan since there isn't a proper sled for Wral and is again praised for her mammalian hospitality. The aliens are entrenched here, and there are a dizzying number of trades that need to be consolidated and centralized. As Wral and their guildmaster are leaving, a group appears with Morez in the lead and something whiffs of a visit from the local worthies. The group with him is richly dressed and as smug as politicians always are, their accents are pure Wild Space and the women look daggers at Mesara - who shifts her weight to the balls of her feet and leaves her arms at her sides.

_ A canny wild tooka sizing up the spoilt housepets. _

And just like that, Lares is up to his hips in bullshit. He's an empath, a low-grade one, but most people seem to have no idea how much they leak. The politicians want to get in good with the Empire, the corporations are mostly law-abiding but want a bigger piece of the shipping trade that the voracious Inner Systems can provide. The Vantos actually brought their kids, and all of them have no idea what to make of Mesara and her freighter as his conveyance.

As he's in the middle of this mess, Mesara starts walking away when her comlink chirps. 

"Captain Novrili."

"Miss Mesara, this is Medic Karasti's office. We'd like to schedule your prenatal baseline-"

"Pardon me, please. A small family matter." Lares excuses himself to a line of dropped jaws and swiftly nicks the comlink from Mesara's hand. "This is Commodore Kanas. We'll be there tomorrow morning."

The silence is perfect and Mesara is a breath from murdering him.

~

She's going to kill him.

That's all she knows and all she can think about. 

He has an arm around her. Talking. On. Her. Comlink. 

"I… see?" The voice on the other end sounds ready to launch into a furious backpedal. "Of course, we were under the impression that the father wasn't in the picture."

Mesara opens her mouth to let fly only to find Kanas' mouth beating her to the punch. "Well, nobody likes being the rebound man, but I understand my responsibilities. Tomorrow morning 08.00? We'll see you then."

His hand moves to her neck, fingers on her bare skin and it's as if her temper drops. He's confident about this, and there's a strange feeling that she can't define - only that it's almost the same as when she thinks of her Bean. 

The Song. She asked it to give her wisdom and courage. Oh, hell no!

"A word in private, my dear." Kanas takes her arm and walks her toward the stern.

"Oh, I have a few." Mesara growls. "We can start with insufferable, presumptuous, interfering-"

"We have much in common, Mesara." He chides.

"What? You're knocked up, too?" 

That gets her a back-of-the-throat laugh. "The Force doesn't lie, Mesara. We are the same - you are an empath."

The Song… she doesn't want to listen. "I'm a bounty hunter, stupid line of work for an empath. I don't know what the Force is. I only know the First Song, from the first note born when the universe was born."

"Search your innermost self, and know the truth. You and your child are on the sensor arrays of some dangerous bastards." Kanas covers her hand on his arm, his Song insistently drawing her attention. "And I will see you tomorrow morning in Northern Reach."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One tooka and a scratching post.

In truth, it takes some hanging around the new garrison - which was still Ladero's when she left - before she's cleared to bolt. Hence, she takes a nap, and shortly after waking gets to see the two ISDs make orbit four hours after their arrival. Out in the black, with no reflective sunlight, the ships are massive, yes. Here on the surface, watching them make orbit and be visible from the ground gives Mesara an idea of their true size alongside the smaller  _ Arquetiens _ -class ships.

One of the ships has as much population as the entire town of Northern Reach, so one of the vendors tells her. 38,000 to 40,000 people.

There are food vendors here, and Mesara's hungry. Even though it's warmer here at the equator, it's still winter and Mesara wants a fully dressed seaweed noodle soup. The toppings are different here, and the broth is deliciously spicier. She takes her bowl and sticks to one side and watches Kanas shovel for all he's worth with what must be every self-important twiddler in five klicks. 

Her comm chirps and Poskas - head of the Bacta Brewers Guild - asks if she has a current brew aboard. Mesara confirms that she does.

"The Vantos are asking for it at guild rate. What's the cubic?"

"Small. I have three two-meters in the secondary hold - brewed just before I left." Mesara replies. "Do they want to decant or are they buying the brew cubes, too?"

A pause and some murmuring. "They'll take the cubes and we'll resupply from your local guild."

"Northern Reaches hall, Master Brewer Dosavik presiding." Mesara walks back to the  _ Cat _ with her soup. "Get a flatbed and I can unload here."

"Negative. You're going to Vanto - ring four, bay 31." 

"Augh." The only good thing is that at least the Vantos will pay the guild and she won't have to wait around. "When?" 

"As soon as your mate releases your ship from Imperial custody." Poskas replies. "Sorry it took so long, but everyone had to get a word in with the new Big Man."

Mesara looks over at that asshole and levels a look that's had meaner than him stepping back.

Instead, he gives her a cheery wave. 

Mr. Vanto shakes Kanas' hand and Mesara can read his lips saying, "Good luck. You're going to need it."

He's on an intercept course to meet her at the foot of the ramp, and for a moment Mesara thinks about having him wear her soup all over his pretty uniform. Self-preservation wins out. That and it's really good soup. 

"No, I didn't instigate the purchase. That was entirely between Mrs. Vanto and the guild." Kansas takes her elbow and walks her up the ramp. "Pull your claws in, fearsome little tooka."

"Just answer one question, Kanas. Why? Why would you give them the impression that we- That you made- Just why?" The Song prods at her and Mesara just doesn't want to hear it right now. "Bean is my decision. Bringing her into the universe is what I decided to do."

"You are on the radar of dangerous people. I know you've heard of children going missing." Kanas murmurs. "You were likely given options that included adoption, or a quick marriage to a retiring officer or non-com - but that won't protect you or your child. It just makes you easier to find. You're brave enough to fight for this child, and the Force tells me to help you."

Mesara looks at him. "I understood every word, but didn't understand a thing you said."

"Of course not, tooka." A little of his Song seeps through and she pushes it back. She doesn't want to know another being that well ever again. "You wouldn't know altruism if it ran up and bit you."

That's what they're calling it now? Mesara leans in with a grin and whispers, "Then bite me."

His grin in return is feral. "Be careful, tooka. I might take you up on that." He then bows over her hand before walking down the ramp. "See you tomorrow, my dear."

The drop-off at Vanto is uneventful, though Mrs. Vanto is present and trying to feel her out. It's not malice, just curiosity. Mrs. V is no soft and spoiled wifey, but swaps tales of her own runs. 

"Surely you can't keep up with hunting while pregnant, Captain."

Mesara shrugs. "The guild offered me light duty - convey and such. The Independent Freight Operators Guild keeps me on pretty steady schedules, but with the winter storms the bottom suckers aren't out. Bacta covers a lot of expenses when there's no work either way."

"Why not post here? The work here doesn't depend on what can be sucked off the ocean floor." 

"Berths here are four times as expensive, and the Insurance Guild charges accordingly. Repairs are a longer wait and more expensive as well. I pay 400 a month in straight Lysatran credits for a berth, power and water. Here, that would be more like 1200." Mesara closes up the bay doors after the last cube is on the flatbed. "Since the city has an ordinance against hunters and freighter operators laying up in their ships, I'd have to pay extra for a room at a guild hall or hostel. I'd rather put that money into the Cat."

"Surely… surely Moff Kanas would smooth the way for you." Mrs. Vanto sounds as if that would be an acceptable way to go.

Mesara shakes her head. "One always needs to remember what is given may also be taken away."

~

24 BBY: Tattooine: Mos Eisley

Sometimes Mhorag and Iasmin left her with people. In fact, Mesara was surprised to learn that Mhorag and Iasmin were in fact, her parents. To little Mesara, they were people who occasionally showed up and were glad to see her. They brought her presents and sometimes took her on long trips in their ship. Iasmin would sit Mesara in her lap and they would fly. As Mesara got older, they'd let her take short hops, Mhorag urging her to learn the whole thing - not just her mother's ability.  When Mesara would cry and want to go with them, beg them not to leave her, they'd tell her to smarten up. It was too dangerous to take her on this job, and they'd paid the people who were taking care of her. They'd bring her back something nice. 

Eventually Mesara stopped crying, because nothing changed. People didn't like her when she cried. At least she got to go to school, and at least she got to make some very tentative friends. It was how she found out she was 'freighter trash.' She was too smart, not supposed to know this, not supposed to do that. If someone brought a fight to her, Mesara finished it - one of the many things she was not supposed to do. Then one day, when she was eleven, the people that Mhorag and Iasmin left her with were not there after school. 

Nothing was there. 

No furniture, no tookas, no anything. Mesara had the clothing she went to school in, her datapad, and her lunchbox. She slept that night behind the housing block, under the air exchangers. Kids without homes went to labor at moisture farms if they were lucky. Mesara once asked what happened to the unlucky ones, and then learned about the spice mines, or pleasure houses, or even the gladia where little ones were trained to fight.  Staying low during the day, Mesara would sleep where she could. Tapping into a water supply and drinking what was available, bathing if she could get a bucketful. At night, she'd move to the rooftops, stealing what food she found, or taking out womp rats with a sling and stones. Cooked womp rats weren't so bad if you didn't think about what you were eating and where it'd been.

That's the way it was for a few months - until she was caught.

Filthy, dehydrated, starving, and sick Mesara was taken to the slave pens, rounded up and trucked to a palace. 

"This one, your Corpulence. I've seen her pilot and nav with her parents - she's freighter trash but she's not another dancing girl." The pen master picked her up by the arm, Mesara too sick and weak to even kick them. "Clean her up and feed her a little, she'll work hard."

It was one of the best times of her life. Gardulla's medic treated her for parasites and dosed her. She could wash and she had clean clothes. Her cot was her own, and right next to Gardulla's dais. All she had to do was bring stuff from Gardulla's to ships in orbit or from the ships to Gardulla. Sometimes Gardulla would show her the treasures from the ships, or have Mesara dress her in them.

" _ Emeela _ . Human girl." Gardulla called her. "You will stay with me and your children will stay with me."

That sounded good to Mesara. She had plenty to eat, a safe place to sleep, and Gardulla even gave her weapons and the training to use them. 

"The universe is violent. You will fly for me all over the galaxy,  _ Emeela _ ." Mesara's hair was being braided with ribbons, little jewels hung from her ears, Gardulla put her in cave-moth silks and krayt-hide with knives in her boots and a blaster sized just for her hand. Gardulla bound off the end of the braids with thread of gold and little sparklies "In time, people will see you as my loyal hand, my little  _ soldati _ ."

It was a future, and Mesara could not remember having one of those before. 

And then her parents came back shipless and freshly released from a Republic prison, Gardulla said they could have Mesara on one condition. They would sell their intentures to Gardulla in return for the manumission of their daughter. Mesara didn't expect them to do it. They'd been gone without a word past 'farewell' since she was eleven and now she was thirteen. In fact, Mesara spoke against it - angrily - and refused to call them Ama and Apa. 

To her utter shock, her parents agreed. Indentures for Mesara's freedom - but she'd still work for Gardulla. 

In the end, it was the Black Sun and the Hutts that sent her and her parents to Lysatra. The war rolled over Tattooine. Gardulla was hemmed in from all sides, and her parents saw a chance. The run to Lysatra was supposed to be a fast trip with a cargo to come back. There was no cargo, no coming back, no Gardulla to return to - just a deal between Jabba and the Black Sun.

Mesara mourned Gardulla with all her heart, burning her hair ribbons in a makeshift pyre on the beach. 

The lesson burned into her bones. 

Do not love what you cannot bear to lose, for what is given can be taken away in the space of a single breath. 

~

Lysatra: Northern Reach: Lowtown: Bay 12

After making for home, Mesara gives herself an indulgence. A box of fried pies, a hot chocolate in a mug the size of her head, and a hot bath. One might not think that a bounty hunter would take a bubbling bath, but with the aid of an inflatable tub and unmetered water heated from her cooling system, that's what she does. As she sinks in Mesara feels the muscles let go of their tension. The unwinding actually hurts for a moment, and then she leans back. 

_ What a ride. It almost feels like a dream. _

The _ Lucky Cat  _ is buttoned up tight, even after being gone just a week means that spring is closer. She can smell the mineral-rich upwelling from the ocean in the air. Soon the moons will align and the Mother of Tides will come. It's been one of Mesara's favorite events for years. For one born and raised on a planet of sand, the plenitude of water here feels like home.  Then again, her fighting forms are mostly air and fire, but recently earth and water have been stronger. Mesara turns her focus inward, to her Bean. The Song isn't really formed yet, as Bean is still newly parted from it. It's disconcerting to feel changes in her own being, but not being able to tab them. One change, however, is going to need changes to her armor - and maybe a new breast supporter. When she'd tried to bind… well, to be honest, Mesara had no idea that boobs could be that angry. 

She'd better read everything in that book. 

Sleep comes easy, but her dreams are strange. Kanas walking through a river of serpents that try but fail to bite him. Herself swimming in the deep of the Reach, great beasts moving below her, though she can't see them. Shifting a dream is like trying to peel yourself off human-sized fly-stick, but she does it and flows into deep restful sleep.  In the morning, it's anything but peaceful with the rain coming in sideways and her comm chiming with weather alerts. She doubts the Pillow Prince will stick his nose out of the hangar for this and puts on her winter wet gear. The airspeeder lands just two meters from the bottom of her ramp as Mesara starts to push her swoop down it. 

That asshole. He showed up, pressed and polished no less.

"Good morning, Mesara."

"Oh, hells. Come on." 

"I'm doing nothing more than what I said I would do, and you can't be serious about riding a swoop in this." Kanas smirks. "I can't tell if you're angry that I showed up because you thought I wouldn't or if you're ticked that I showed up at all."

"I don't understand and I don't want to." She might have asked that the First Song open her ears. That didn't necessarily mean that she wants to listen. "This is… I can handle myself."

"All due respect, hunter," he says soberly, "But you are a tooka facing a hunting pack." 

"I've heard of kids being taken. I don't know if it's truth or not." Mesara shrugs, uneasiness winding up her spine. "The Jedi did the same, according to tales I've heard. Nicking babes right from their mother's arms."

Kanas doesn't look happy with it either. "We're doing nothing but playing their game right back at them. It protects you and your child."

"But what do you get out of it? You could get laid at any time. You're not too bad-looking-"

"Oh, thank you _so_ very-"

"-unless you have a pregnancy kink."

"What?" 

To be honest, he looked floored. "You know, a guy who gets-"

He pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. "I. Understand."

_ Ooh. Got one in past the defenses. _

"Anyway, if you're going with me you have to shove over. I'm driving." If you don't take, then you can't have. "You don't even know the place yet."

"Do you have a license for this kind of craft?" He enquires.

"You need a license for an airspeeder? We don't have them here. I was driving an Incom T-16 when I was twelve - and a Tagge Cargohopper, too."

Kanas pinches the bridge of his nose again. "You don't have driving licenses?"

"Not for atmospherics, no." Poking him is a lot of fun.

"So how do you know who's qualified to operate one?"

"They don't crash?" That gets her a guttural sigh, then a dawning realization and she laughs. "They stuck you with it, didn't they?"

"With what, you wicked little tooka?" He's severe, but also for some reason amused. The Song ripples with it.

"Being in charge. Being the thing that Mrs. Vanto called you - a muff."

"Moff."

"But they did, didn't they?"

"Yes, you doomsayer. The paperwork is en route from Coruscant - confirmed last night. I suspect you of sorcery now." He moves to the passenger seat. "Now get in and let's go."

"You're going to let me fly." He has an ulterior motive and possibly more than one. 

"Because you have an important appointment and if that's what it takes to get you there, I'm going to do it." Then he smiles. "Now, this is not an 'I am the boss of you' situation, Tooka. However, please remember that in my official capacity there are two ways to do things."

"And that is?" Mesara takes the pilot's seat, sealing up the Lucky Cat as she does so. 

"We can do things my way, or we can do things my way." 

Wait a minute. 

Oh, really.

"Buckle up, Commodore Pillow Prince." 

The man laughs as if it was one of the best jokes he'd ever heard.

~

'Tooka' suits her. All hiss, spit, and swipe. Smart enough to get into real trouble with just enough experience to think she could handle it. 

Mesara handles the craft with a practiced hand, even in the high winds that smack into them once they're outside the baffles of her landing bay.  Lares doesn't mind the rest, the last day has been exhausting. That and landing with a scandal has certainly set a tooka among the Loth-rats. In fact, he heard from Coruscant on that very thing, which means the second he was off Mesara's comm with the clinic, the ISB was comming Coruscant. The tale was going to grow legs, he knew, but having a powerful patron protected many in the Empire, and if knocking up someone outside of marriage was a crime, they'd have to execute a third of the officer corps.  Courlag Citizens had additional traditional protections when it came to extramarital sex, given back to them when the Republic became the Empire. Mesara would be seen as a 'war bride' - something of a junior wife to Gisele should she return with him to Corulag. However, he would not tell Mesara that as it might get him shivved. 

The clinic is a squat blown-duracrete building among others of the same style. Function is everything here, it appears. If this storm is any indication, it has to be. He can see fishing vessels and extraction platforms justling on their anchors in heavy seas. It's more like home than he expected, a boy from the land of the winterdark.  From the second they walk into the lobby, the hair on the back of his neck is trying to stand on end and he can tell Mesara feels it, too. Her sense in the Force is all but invisible, her hand hovering near her blaster. He is armed as well, something that throws off the human woman at reception. The smile freezes on her face, and her jaw barely unlocks to ask for Mesara's name.

Lares answers, hand on the small of Mesara's back. To her credit she neither jumps, nor does she shoot him. "Mesara Novrili."

The receptionist is trying for expressionless, but isn't quite making it as she stands and moves toward the coor into the practice area. "One moment." 

"Of course." Lares answers, hand still on the small of her back. "My dear, it looks as if it may be some time. You might consider changing to an appropriate facility in Sunbelt City."

"Nothing's decided and besides, this is where I work." This given with all the ram-headedness of their first meeting. "This is just… an appointment and that's all it is."

Lares can't tell if she's playing along or warning him off as he guides her toward the seating area. He can barely sense her. "We will further discuss it. I understand my responsibilities, of that you may be sure."

A deep breath and flare of temper before she opens fire. "I understand that this was an accident, but I want this child. You had no right-"

"I had every right to make it my business because I fathered a child with someone who had her contraceptive coils shot off." Lares fires right back. "If I hadn't caught up to you when I did, I would not have known."

"If I'd known you were some fancy fat bastard in the navy, I'd have steered shy, I can tell you that-" 

"Oh, I do not regret those three days. Not in a century, my dear-" He drops his voice a half octave and by the Thundersnow she blushes. "And I likely shot you down in one salvo, too."

A cough and ostentatious throat clearing interrupts the shin to the balls or plexus punch that was likely coming his way. The larger part of the clinic staff is standing there awkward as hell.

"Commodore Kanas, Mistress Novrili - if you'd come this way." The clinician gestures awkwardly. "Your ship's medic sent down the prenatal baseline. We can get started right away."


End file.
